


Blackout (curtains, drunk)

by pavelgino (Aifeifei)



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Alcohol, Complicated Relationships, Drabble, M/M, Sharing a Bed, Short, enjoy anyways xxo, this isn't actually good but
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-04
Updated: 2021-02-04
Packaged: 2021-03-15 19:28:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29194590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aifeifei/pseuds/pavelgino
Summary: Elias wakes up to his alarmingly unabashed (and drunk) liney curling up into him in his shitty hotel bed, and, well, that's okay. Kind of. Okay, it's unusual but it's not like he's going to complain.
Relationships: Brock Boeser/Elias Pettersson
Comments: 12
Kudos: 68





	Blackout (curtains, drunk)

**Author's Note:**

> NOTE that this very short story is about real people; if you are one of those real people, please go away, or kindly sue me directly without reading first.
> 
> diz if u see this... no you didn't <3
> 
> cw for alcohol mention

It was a dream, feeling that warm and heavy. For sure. Things like that didn’t happen in reality, not now, anyway. Strangely lucid, and very warm, Elias let it stick. He settled back against the heavy, eyes still shut; though it wouldn’t have mattered, dream and all. He opened them, and it stung in the way waking stings, felt real in the way a dream doesn’t feel. And that heavy presence still moving, had a comforting, familiar smell, his arms thick and brushing against Elias’ sides. It was Brock — not the dream Brock, but the real one, clear in the way dreams weren’t.

Elias, groggy and confused, turned over towards him in the black room. The world was real, still there, an unfeeling hotel room with two queens, crisp and white bedding. It was dark, with a tiny bit of city — whatever city they were in — peeking through the blackout curtains. And the other bed must not’ve be used, because Brock was in _this_ bed, making a soft, tired groan as his sturdy arms climbed tiredly around Elias’ sides.

Elias looked, blinked into the darkness, half-asleep but awake enough to feel his heart catch in his throat. Brock hadn’t been there when he went to bed, but how long ago was that? And why was he here now? Elias couldn’t see his face, but he could feel his head raise, his soft hair brushing the top of Elias’ shoulder.

“Boes?” He let out, croaky into the black room. He sounded alarmed — he _felt_ alarmed. It wasn’t like they didn’t hug, weren’t open, but they didn’t do this. If this’d been a common occurrence, Elias surely would have lost his mind a long time ago.

“Petey,” Brock said, his voice gravelly too, but in a different way. He let Elias’ name come out slowly, breath hot and tangible, and he smelled like watered-down whiskey. His arm was still curled around, the sleeve of the hoodie feeling nearly rough against the bare skin of Elias’ torso.

“You’re drunk,” Elias noted, still twisted in an awkward position as he looked uselessly into the dark where he knew Brock’s face was. He wasn’t asking a question. Brock was unusually devoid of shame, letting his need for touch drive him for once, and the alcohol was still sweet on his breath.

“M’ bed is cold,” Brock explained, tightening his face into skin of Elias’ shoulder. He wouldn’t complain, except he was one scratch of Brock’s facial hair on his arm from combusting. “Can I sleep here?”

Why was he asking? No, of course not. No, they never talked about or acted on whatever went on in the space between them, if there was anything, and no! Because you don’t just sleep in the bed of your liney when your own bed is _right_ there, and—

“Why?” Elias asked, instead of no. Brock would have read it as what it was, if he was sober, which he wasn’t. But drunk him and no inhibitions, and didn’t even hear the question, so instead he said:

“Petey,” Brock’s voice was different, and he shuffled up, tightening his arm. Elias shifted over so he was facing upwards, finally finding it within himself to twist away from Brock’s fingers brushing unintentionally against the tightened muscles of his stomach. He looked at Brock instead, and it was a horrible idea, but not as horrible as letting him stroke over his abdomen without a care in the world. His fingers now fell slightly less distractingly against the side of his body. “Do you wanna” — he let out a groan, getting settled — “play hockey with me forever? Tandem line, duo, play hockey forever. Together with me.”

Elias just woke up. He really wasn’t ready to deal with Brock Boeser saying shit to him, all soft, like he could be sometimes when he stopped thinking about everyone else. And he hated it, how his breath caught, how he stared blankly down at the vague outline of Brock’s face revealing itself as Elias’ eyes began to pick up the shape in the light through the curtain.

Brock wasn’t thinking about anything really; it seemed like his eyes were barely open, and the way his voice sounded was like he was smooshed halfway in between the pillow and Elias’ shoulder. But Thatcher’s words stuck in his head. Drunk words are sober thoughts. Drunk words are sober thoughts.

“I guess you had fun,” Elias deflected, roughly, referring to the just-now-remembered night out that some of the guys had.

“Petey,” Brock said, for the third time, sliding his hand lazily (agonizingly) across Elias’ body before resting it on his bare shoulder. “It’d be more fun if you were there,” he mumbled. He let his hand trail slowly, down the tendons of Elias’ shoulder, thumb dipping into the slot of his armpit, fingers hot on the top of his clavicle. He wasn’t meaning to do it, touch him like that, and that was the worst part. Elias watched, throat on fire, the barely-visible dazed look in Brock’s lidded eyes. He swallowed, and Brock continued. “I’ll play hard, yeah? So we can, play, stay in Vancouver forever… why is your bed so warm?”

“Brock,” Elias said, finally finding the skill within himself to gently pry his best friend’s fingers off of his skin. Gently. Because when he was like this, he could get hurt easily, and this was uncharted territory, and there was no telling how far it could go, and— Elias couldn’t do that. Pretend it was normal. Brock had an excuse, being wasted, but Elias didn’t. “Why don’t,” he swallowed, his voice was small but so rough in the silent room. “We can talk in the morning? It’s the middle of the night,” he joked, quietly.

Brock tucked his face in, his beard leaving a gentle scratch, seeming so small though he was a very big man. He groaned in his usual pouty way, but the sound made Elias nearly lightheaded. “I’m drunk,” he said, uselessly.

“Mm,” Elias agreed, closing his eyes and letting his head dip against the pillow. “I noticed.”

“I just want to stay with you,” Brock slurred, voice still muffled into the side of Elias’ bare skin. “I dunno why I wanna stay with you so much,”

“Shut up, okay?” Elias said, with absolutely no vitriol at all. “You better sleep.” His heart was too tight inside his chest, and he thought maybe he wanted Brock to keep talking. It would be unfair to both of them, really, to let him keep talking. But God, it felt so good to hear that, too good, dangerously good.

Brock lifted his head, and Elias felt it rather than saw it. Though it was black inside the room, he turned his head anyway, towards Brock’s face. “It’s really comfy here,” he said, in a drawl. “Petey, let me lie here. That’s what friends are for, yeah?”

“I don’t know about that,” Elias said, the arm that had been squashed underneath Brock’s torso finally shifting and lifting just a bit. He felt Brock’s hoodie under his fingers, and he felt his bare legs against his own; it was a charming thing he did, a hoodie and boxers for sleeping. It was ridiculous and so sweet, and: “Sure,” Elias added, sounding almost raw, hoping that Brock would not remember his fingers touching the material of his clothes with an embarrassing amount of sentiment. “You can lie here.”

Brock laughed the drunk, giggly, and breathless version of his princely laugh, removing his hand for only half a second from Elias chest to adjust the duvet, and bringing it back down around him. “Petey,” Brock sighed, “You’re funny. You’re so funny, I—”

“Boes, shut up, go to sleep.” Elias said this and Brock listened, letting his head drop up onto the pillow, breath coming gentle out onto his friend’s neck. Amid relief, andmaybe disappointment, Elias let his arm gently rest overtop Brock’s side.

He never allowed himself to want Brock to do something about fixing the tension in that stupid little space they had between them. He never thought about it either, because fuck, what a mess. But it was times like this — where something was outside the lines — that screwed it all up; made the longing boil over Elias’ heart and spill into his organs, took the moments and contextualized them, made them real.

Was he even allowed to let his arm sit over the dip in Brock’s torso, curl it in, let his hand rest over his wide back? Why couldn’t he take a moment to think before letting his eyelids droop in how nice it felt to have Brock lying next to him?

He was so hesitant. If Brock _liked_ him, then he was hesitant also, not brave enough to take any steps in the light of day. Of course. Of course, it had to be like that. But in these little moments, when all the lines seemed looser… when Elias allowed himself to wish… fuck, did he ever wish.

He took a deep breath — he could hear the slow speed in Brock’s, knew that he’d fallen halfway asleep. He was a big guy, a little shorter but much larger than Elias was, and yet he somehow seemed so small. He was nearly drooling, like a complete idiot, and yet he was somehow so endearing.

With the heat of Brock’s body seeping through his hoodie onto bare skin, these stupid, half-awake thoughts did not stick around in consciousness for long. Eventually, Elias drifted off, part of him wondering if he’d even woken up in the first place.

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to snuggle so I lived vicariously through some hockeys (ie the only hockeys i ever think about). Also it was not edited at all, so if u bully please bully me with respect <3
> 
> thanks for reading! :)


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